CityFibre gets to work on future-proofing Luton’s digital foundations as part of £45m Full Fibre investment

Work to bring full fibre connectivity within reach of almost every home and business in Luton gets underway as CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, breaks ground on a new infrastructure rollout that will future-proof the digital needs of the town for generations to come.

The rollout forms part of CityFibre’s £45m digital infrastructure investment in Luton and Dunstable. Construction has begun in Luton, with works starting in the Stopsley area, and is being delivered by Instalcom Limited on behalf of CityFibre. The team will use a range of construction methods while working in close partnership with Luton Council and the local community to deliver a fast rollout while managing potential disruption. The rollout is expected to move into Dunstable early next year.

Each area will usually take a few weeks to complete, however, construction teams will typically only be outside each home for two to three days and CityFibre will communicate to residents and businesses ahead of any works starting.

As the network is completed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate the homes ‘ready for service’, which means residents can choose to connect to full fibre-enabled broadband services when they go live in their area.

In Luton, services will be available from an increasing range of broadband providers. Across the UK, CityFibre is already working with launch partner Vodafone to supply full fibre infrastructure for customers on selected Vodafone Pro Broadband plans as well as TalkTalk and Zen with other partners expected to join the network soon.

Speaking of the project, Jean Gowin, CityFibre’s Area Manager for Luton and Dunstable, said: “I’m excited and proud to see work getting underway in Luton today. This is the start of an exciting new chapter for the town as it gets ready to embrace and thrive in the digital age. We appreciate this is a huge build project and there will be some short-term disruption. However, once the network is built, our full fibre will serve the community’s connectivity needs for decades to come.”

Full fibre networks, unlike many of the copper-based ‘fibre broadband’ services available today, use 100% fibre optic cables to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection. This gives users speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps for upload and download, near limitless bandwidth and connectivity users can depend on.

A full fibre connection also goes far beyond simply enabling access to the latest entertainment at lightning speed. As an essential digital utility, full fibre boosts households and businesses alike, with experts saying it will drive a range of economic benefits, such as making us more productive and innovative.

Paul Alderton, Communications Director, at Instalcom said: “Instalcom are delighted to be undertaking the network build in Luton for CityFibre. Our civils teams, fibre installation teams and fibre termination and testing engineers will be working collaboratively with the CityFibre build team to ensure that the works are undertaken with minimal disruption. The Instalcom Management team have worked tirelessly during the mobilization period to ensure that the program of works was produced and agreed in conjunction with Luton Borough Council. We are looking forward to a successful fibre build.”

CityFibre is bringing full fibre connectivity within reach of up to 8m homes in towns and cities across the UK as part of its up to £4bn Gigabit City Investment Programme. Find out more at www.cityfibre.com.

Residents interested in giving their home broadband a boost can find out more about the build and register their interest at www.cityfibre.com/residential.